Reviewed by True
TITLE: Paladin
SERIES: Jericho’s Boys #1
AUTHOR: Onley James
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 335 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023
BLURB:
Arseny Lebedev lives a normal life. During the day, he’s a mechanic. At night, he livestreams a fairy tale video game called Paladin. And sometimes—only sometimes—he kills people. But they all deserve it.
Ever doesn’t know his last name. He doesn’t know much of anything. Most of his life has been torture, bought and sold by a woman who calls herself his mother. He’s resigned himself to a life of servitude, until he meets Arsen.
The moment Arsen sees Ever, they’re bonded. Ever is both fragile and feral, willing to defend himself with any tool at his disposal, even teeth. Arsen is color and light, a beacon in Ever’s darkness, as brave as the knight in the game he plays.
Arsen protects Ever fiercely, but just when he feels safe, someone attempts to drag him back to his old life, reminding him that reality isn’t fairy tales or video games. He knows staying puts Arsen in danger. But Arsen insists they’re safer together. Can Ever truly have his happily ever after or is it game over?
Paladin is a hurt-comfort, dark romance with an HEA and no cliffhangers. It features a vigilante twitch-streamer and the beautiful but feral gremlin he saves from a life of misery. As with any Onley book, you’ll find dark humor, steamy sexy times, and gratuitous violence against people who totally deserve it. This is book 1 in the Jericho’s Boys series. Each book follows a different couple.
REVIEW:
You could think Arseny is just a regular guy ha! Not! For the outside world he is just a mechanic, only, at night he streams a video game Paladin, and at a special occasion he kills… but only the bad ones!
In one of these cases, he found a boy, neglected, tortured, abused, small, and way too thin.
The only thing he could do was take him with him.
Ever was like a baby bird, completely dependent, waiting for food and, what others wanted from him.
What Arsen didn’t know was that Ever was so afraid to do the wrong thing, so they will hurt him, abuse him, won’t feed him, they’ll send him to others, who will use him, and hurt him.
It was devastating, I wanted to scream.
He had no clue what to do and how to behave, waiting for orders.
Arsen understands Ever is nineteen, and he’s struggling with his feelings for Ever.
“He was fucked. He was so fucked they would have to think of a new word for fucked. Destroyed. Ruined. Done for.”
While Ever is used to being used sexually, Arsen wants to show him the opposite, Arsen will protect Ever, and no one will harm him, or use him, ever, over his dead body!
Sweet innocent Ever makes it quite difficult, he’s titillate affectionate without even knowing it.
You could make the mistake and think with saving Ever, he’s safe and the threats are over… wrong!
The Mulvaneys are so present in this story, it was awesome! You know they take care of their own. They are vicious and hilarious. I’m so happy there’s a continuation of this world where they are still involved.
Jericho’s Boys is a wonderful spin-off. There’s an amount of hurt in this story, all strongly written, there are the ‘good’ bad guys who are fighting for the ones they love, the ones who are hurt, they are possessive and protective AF, and there’s a lot of hot sex to enjoy, and a nice plot!
Give me the next one *grabbing hands*
RATING: 
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